Forecast: Some signs of warmer weather ahead

Issued February 11, 2019: Covering the period from February 13 to 20

After a cold and unsettled couple of weeks it looks like more tranquil late-winter weather will move in during this forecast period. For those of you looking for a quick warm-up, you’ll have to wait a little longer. It looks more and more like we’ll see a long, slow warm-up as we work our way toward the beginning of March and spring.

For the start of this forecast period we will see arctic high pressure slowly build and drop southeastward. This arctic high won’t be as cold as the last few, as its origins are from the southern Arctic. We should expect to see mainly sunny skies from Wednesday right through to the weekend. Temperatures will be cold, but not frigid, with daytime highs expected to be in the -15 to -18 C range and overnight lows around -25 C.

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We may see some increasing clouds on Sunday or Monday as a weak disturbance slides by to our south on the northern edge of a large southern U.S. storm system. Southern regions may see the odd flurry, but it doesn’t look like we’ll see any measurable snow.

Daytime highs will jump a few degrees ahead of this system before yet another arctic high builds southward early next week.

This second arctic high will originate in the high Arctic, which means once again we will see some frigid temperatures. Expect daytime highs by Tuesday or Wednesday to be in the -22 to -24 C range, with overnight lows dropping into the mid-minus-30s. Looking further ahead, the weather models show a westerly flow developing by the last weekend in February. This should allow for Pacific air to begin pushing eastward across the Prairies, starting what will hopefully be the beginning of the spring warm-up.